“Advisory committee members are newspaper distributors and concerned citizens appointed by the Director of Public Works.The NAC meets regularly to discuss policies and procedures and to make recommendations to the Director of Public Works to amend the Guidelines Regarding News Racks and other progam needs. Meetings are scheduled on the 2nd Tuesday of each month.”

Who’s doing what now? Were the relevant policies wrong before? Are they right now?

I know not.

Let’s hope Michael can get to the bottom of this soon.

*And then maybe, you know, to punish me, a signals intelligence officer working at the Chinese consulate near Japantown could packet sniff my cell again.**

**Now I’m not even sure about the first time. But I remember picking up some election stuff and a handcart at City Hall*** on a Friday evening, you know, using Mom’s Taxi,**** and it was the anniversary of something horrible that the backward, unelected, one-party-state that is the People’s Republic of China had done, so I figured I’d drop by Laguna on my home on Turk, check out the scene, see how many Feds are hanging about. It was boring so I sat in Mom’s taxi checking the gMail before heading out. Twelve hours later I get an email from Google telling me how I’d been hacked from somewhere in the PRC, ostensibly, on the East Coast – I checked the location on a map. That kind of thing hasn’t happened before and it hasn’t happened since. (And if somebody read my emails, I don’t really care anyway, as I haven’t ever really been in contact with the Tibetans or whomever might scheme to attack or whatever.) But, when there’s a protest going on around that consulate, you might want to consider taking the battery pack out of your mobile, just saying. Now I’m sure that the United States spies on China the same way that our Chinese Consulate on Geary conducts espionage on San Franciscans so I guess it all evens out in the great scheme of things. And maybe the hack was a coinkidink, don’t know. (China has more than a few freelance hackers, of course.)

***Now how on Gaia’s Green Earth does the Department of Elections get away with paying pollworkers less than minimum wage for a 15 hour day on Election Day plus three hours of unpaid training? It’s not considered work? There’s some exception? I gots to know. They called me again yesterday, following up on the numerous letters they’ve already sent out. 1. No, I don’t want to work this election. 2. No, I don’t want to work future elections. (Short phone call.) You know, maybe if the City paid election workers at least minimum wage, you know, the way they require everybody else in town to pay minimum wage, then the City wouldn’t have such a hard time finding workers who don’t go psycho and steal ballots and cell phones and whatnot? Maybe? Anyway, IMO the only reason to sign up for a pollworker gig is to get out of working for a campaign, which, back in the day, I was more or less required to do, you know, take vacation days off to work on campaigns else my supe, a so-called Constitutional Officer of the State of California would frown a perfect upside-down smile at me. And you don’t want that. And oh yes, remember to not tell the Fiona people you’re also working on Leland’s campaign and to not tell the Leland people you’re also working on Fiona’s campaign, cause, you know. Ah mem’ries.

****Which is actually an aging 8-passenger Toyota (which is actually shorter than some two-door Camry Solaras), but don’t worry – it has an old-school throttle cable going through the firewall and an electronic throttle position sensor doohicky too, belts-and-suspenders style, so I’ll have no one to blame when I get caught speeding on the superslab or crashing into things…